Trading cards have been available for a number of years primarily in the field of sports, such as baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc. Baseball player trading cards, for example, include a picture of the baseball player and statistics related to the baseball player's performance. A number of trading cards are commonly contained in the same package. Typically, when such a package of trading cards is purchased, the customer does not know before the package is opened which baseball players' cards are in the package. Consequently, in the case in which the customer already has one of the baseball cards that was just purchased, a well-known option that the customer typically has is to trade this baseball card for another baseball card that he does not have.
Trading cards presently are available in a hard copy format that does not offer interactivity, motion and sound. With the ever-expanding usage of computers and resulting computer displays, especially by the young, a new form of trading card presentation has been devised. In particular, a multimedia computer system, together with trading card software and subject data, enhances the trading card format and offers advantages not found with hard copy trading cards. In creating this new trading card, a key factor relates to reducing the ability and likelihood of copying the trading card. Unlike hard copy trading cards that are inherently impractical for the individual card owner to copy, trading card software is more readily duplicatable. That is, in the absence of any full or substantial copy protection, it is relatively straightforward to copy software between or among different storage media. The concern arises, therefore, that individual collectors of the trading cards, implemented using trading card software, will merely copy each others individual trading cards embodied in software onto their own storage media, such as a hard disk. If such a copying practice is easily available, the suppliers of the trading card software would have extreme difficulty in marketing their trading cards, especially where enforcement of laws protecting against such copying is impractical and/or cost prohibitive.
In addition to trading cards directed to sport personalities, it would also be advantageous to provide trading card software and subject data directed to other well-known individuals, such as action heroes or other television or movie personalities, or any person, place, or thing. The trading card software is also applicable to imaginary characters, such as cartoon characters.